“Come September, all of a sudden, the temperature started to cool down, the trade winds started to become a little bit enhanced, and the cloud patterns and other indicators like that headed away from El Nino,” he said.

Dr Watkins says they are not sure why there has been a cooling down. “It actually is quite a unique situation if we end up not going into an El Nino event,” he said. “It’ll sort of be the biggest turnaround that we’ve actually seen in our records going back to about 1950, so quite unprecedented.” [full story ABC]

Good news (possibly) for farmers with more normal levels of rain likely to fall. Though that which disappears on a whimsy, could reappear suddenly too I presume? In the end it shows how much we have yet to learn about the climate.

No doubt some of the more politically committed psyentists, and their journalist barrackers, were hoping for a hot dry summer to justify the carbon tax and (in their dreams) bolster Lie-bore’s re-election prospects. If Gaia thumbs her nose at them with a cool damp summer, it will be the most delicious karma.

Much to the dismay of Wongbot, Professor Panasonic once had the audacity to admit, in an Alan Jones interview no less, that the difference the Australian carbon tax would make to world temperature by 2050 would be “pretty small”. In the context of the conversation that meant less than 0.01 degrees.

But it was too little too late. He had recycled climate lies for too long to be welcomed back to society, but after this sudden admission of truth he was no longer favoured by his paymasters either. Both bridges ablaze. Such a silly lad. But politically nobody on the Climate Commission can be fired for as long as Labor is in power. So he is now Gillard’s Climate Gimp; kept out of the media spotlight as much as possible but still brought out occasionally to do the government’s dirty work while on a very short leash.
He should have stayed in the computer lab at Adelaide.

The PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO, so there’s no reaon for them to mention it. The reason the PDO has a different time schedule is because the spatial pattern of the North Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies (the PDO) is also influenced by the sea level pressure of the North Pacific.

The reason the PDO has a different time schedule is because the spatial pattern of the North Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies (the PDO) is also influenced by the sea level pressure of the North Pacific.

Bob, I know you have done a lot of work on this and what you say is confirmed by Newman et al who say:

Variability of the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), on both interannual and decadal timescales, is well modeled as the sum of direct forcing by El Nin˜o–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the ‘‘reemergence’’ of North Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies in subsequent winters, and white noise atmospheric forcing.

Doesn’t this mean that PDO phases are legitimately described in terms of what ENSO oscillation dominates for a period, with the “white noise” either being the AGW signal or, more likely, stochastic factors, including asymmetry in the ENSO oscillations?

I read a very persuasive argument made at WUWT about two years ago that the North Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) flipped about 2009 from a 30-year cyclical position that favours El Nino conditions (from ~1980 to 2010) to position which favours La Nina conditions, which should last for the next 30 years. The article presented historic evidence of a roughly 30-cycle going back as far as could be discerned.

Bob and Cohenite would have the links. But as I understand it, this doesn’t mean El Ninos and droughts won’t occur, but that they will be weaker and less common then in the last thirty years, at least for eastern Australia. In CA, TX, New Mexico and Arizona it might be time to sell the ranch.

In fact it was the super El Nino of 1998 which really gave the whole AGW meme its big push as a pop culture and political phenomena. So the last warm phase PDO might well be the cause of all or most global warming (both politically and fer real outside of bogus adjustments and bad station placement) observed since about 1980, which would explain why warming has plateaued.

I certainly hope I understand the decadal PDO correctly, because I built my farm management plan around a slightly cooler and significantly wetter next couple of decades based in part upon this idea, among other observations such as the downward spiral of the last solar cycle.

wes George says: “I read a very persuasive argument made at WUWT about two years ago that the North Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) flipped about 2009 from a 30-year cyclical position that favours El Nino conditions (from ~1980 to 2010) to position which favours La Nina conditions, which should last for the next 30 years.”

wes George says: “So the last warm phase PDO might well be the cause of all or most global warming (both politically and fer real outside of bogus adjustments and bad station placement) observed since about 1980, which would explain why warming has plateaued.”

There is no mechanism through which the PDO can cause global surface temperatures to vary. None. In fact, the PDO is inversely related to the sea surface temperatures of the North Pacific, north of 20N. That’s illustrated and discussed the the post linked above.

Perhaps wes; there are some subtle distinctions at play; Bob has noticed the inverse correlation between some SST and an ENSO agglomeration which because it may feature a preponderance of either El Nino or La Nina be respectively a -ve PDO or +ve PDO; as Bob says:

Yup, it’s unreasonable, because there’s no mechanism for the PDO to vary global temperatures. Why not say that global temperatures cool during multidecadal periods when La Nina events dominate?

I’m trying to tease something other than a semantic point here.

From 1976 to about 1997 it is beyond dispute that world temperatures increased while El Nino dominated and +ve PDO prevailed.

Before 1976, from about 1940, the opposite occurred, and again from 1910 to 1940.

Does Bob’s observation of a negative correlation between a regional SST and PDO phase vitiate the legitimacy of saying that PDO phase shift does correlate with GAT; or if not how is that different from “Why not say that global temperatures cool during multidecadal periods when La Nina events dominate?”?

A further issue can be introduced with Stewart Franks work on the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation [IPO] which also features a correlation with rainfall and temperature in Australia.

But, importantly, Franks also found that whatever ENSO type occurred, during a -ve IPO it was more intense than during a +ve IPO, even though more La Nina events typically occurred during a -ve IPO.

While we can’t say with certainty if PDO is a driver or effect, we do have strong evidence of a 60 year cycle. During the last deglaciation there were short periods of glacier extension that left small moraines every 60 years or so. Sure we don’t know if this cycle is present at all temps, but of course the same can be said for ENSO. ENSO cycling is not recorded in sediments on both sides of the pacific when the Southern Hemisphere was warmer a few thousand years ago and seem most prevalent in cooling environments (based on lake sediments in Aus and Peru.)

NINO3.4 index is at +0.47 at 21 Oct, just below the +0.5 threshold but the EL NIÑO definition is “a three-month average of sea surface temperature departures from normal for a critical region of the equatorial Pacific (Niño 3.4 region; 120W-170W, 5N-5S)” “greater than or equal in magnitude to 0.5 degrees C”

This statement made me look at Bob Tisdale’s graphs of Nino 3.4 (http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/) and there were ‘turnarounds’ that look similar in 2008-9 and 2011-12, although these did not cross the El Nino +0.5C value.

So is this ‘biggest turnaround in weather patterns’ only because it occurred after reaching El Nino values?

If so, why would it be expected that the El Nino would become more pronounced?

Also, the only other El Niño events since 1982 that started strong and then faltered (for a little while) were the non-event in 1993, which peaked real early in May, and the 1991/92 El Niño:http://i47.tinypic.com/3169649.jpg
The 1991/92 El Niño became quite strong, while in 2003, the warming never returned. The 1991/92 event may have been impacted temporarily by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

FYI, there are some papers that say there was one long El Niño that lasted from 1991/1994, with the usual unprecedented, “caused by global warming” nonsense. That string of El Niño events appears simply to be an aftereffect of the leftover warm water from the 1986/87/88 El Niño and 1988/89 La Nina—like the string from 2002-2007 was likely an aftereffect of the 1997/98 El Niño and the 3-year La Niña that followed it.

There are two parts to the projection of catastrophic global warming. First the average temperatures will get an awful lot warmer. Second, and on the back of the warming, the climate will become more volatile and thus many times more costly (both to human being and nature).
This requires separating out the still faint signals of impending catastrophe, from the (currently) bigger signals of natural climatic fluctuations. The crucial test of credibility is the fulfilment of short-term projections of unusual climatic events with natural and anthropogenic causes. Instead, the opposite is the case.

More hurricanes projected in USA, but we get the quietest period on record. More drought projected in Australia, but we get flooding.
Snow projected to become a distant memory in Britain, but we get the worst snow in 30 years.
More record heat waves projected in 2003 following a once-in-a-century hot spell. Nothing like it since.
Arctic Ocean to be ice-free in 2012. 4.7m sq km is not a near-miss.
In Britain in April (Spring-time) a national crisis was declared after a very dry winter. In parts of the country the water table was projected to take years to recover. Next week it started raining. Within 3 months the ground was fully saturated. This is not unusual. The last serious drought was in 1996, and before that in 1976.

Suppose that the real truth is that we are heading for catastrophic global warming? How should we analyse the evidence?

Jo Nova’s blog can show plenty of examples where the “consensus” is doing the exact opposite of what is required to extract faint signals from the current large, random, natural variability. This includes:-
- Failure to recognise and learn from failed predictions
- Partisan approaches to data analysis (search “Australian Temperature Record” or “Hockey Stick” or “Gergis”)
- Exclusion of contrary opinions (search “ClimateGate” or “Lewandowsky” or “Bain”)

But what would a more objective analysis look like? My proposal is here.

Anyone who wants to know more about El Nino, Bob Tisdales your man, I highly recommend his simply described but comprehensive “Who Turned on the Heat” book. As he says the El Niño-Southern Oscillation is “The Unsuspected Global Warming Culprit”

The Nino 3.4 table indicates a rebound towards El Nino from under 0.4 to 0.47. Even going by http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/monitoring/nino3_4.png the September-October period is rarely strongly positive but often strongly negative. This does not mean we have left overall El Nino conditions behind and weather patterns themselves ( i.e rainfall/dry) seems to lag the onset ( or strong changes in direction) of El Nino or La Nina conditions by some months.

I noticed some time back a tidal guage that seemed to show enso changes in the tidal readings perhaps weeks before the events happened. I might see if I can track it down to get a rough prediction of the coming weeks, and then consult chicken entrails (climtastrophologist style).

A comment I posted on a Bob Tisdale thread at WUWT back in September..

Baa Humbug says:
September 10, 2012 at 10:04 pm

Personal opinion.

We should have been heading back towards weak La Nina conditions from about the middle of July. However, the trade winds stayed suppressed due to the extraordinary cool waters between Australia and PNG/Indonesia. The pressure differential between Tahiti and Darwin has been depressed because of this.
When the trade winds are suppressed, they are unable to cool the sea surface (like blowing across the top of your cup of tea to cool it down. We are talking about sea SURFACE temperatures).
When warm water penetrates into the Timor sea, Darwin pressure should drop and the trade winds should pick up again.
Cold upwelling water has been prominent along the coast of Peru for about 3-4 weeks now. Once the tradies pick up, these cold waters should start migrating west…..hello La Nina.
Eastern Australia will have a wetter than normal summer this year with a La Nina prominent by the middle of January.

The wags at BoM should have known about the cold upwelling waters along the coast of Peru, it’s been obvious for a number of months now. All it needed was for the trade winds to pick-up to spread those cold waters west.

I still expect a fairly wet late December-January in Eastern Australia.

Although, if you look at longer term weekly trends, El Nino often start off clearing his throat like this. We could still be into an El Nino by February or March. Or we could remain in a neutral trend.

What is absolutely weird is the line:

The chief climate forecaster says it is the biggest turnaround in weather patterns since records began.

Why is every other bloody weather pattern UNPRECEDENTED to these drama queens?

This is a main topic of discussion whenever I bump into my farm neighbours in town. It’s of paramount importance in the bush.

My gut feeling, based on little empirical evidence, is that we are eventually going to have El Nino and droughty conditions later this year. Soil moisture is still good, so if we have even middling rains in November/December we’ll be fine.

It just feels like that. Hold your stock. Wait and see. Farmers out west are already dumping stock knocking prices back.

That’s the consensus among farmers on the tablelands of NSW. The debate at the local pub is whether a fundamental phase shift has occurred in the Pacific that has broken the back of the ordinary weather we’ve had since the late 1980′s and might be going to turn around to the better years the old blokes recall from the 1970′s…. whether the drought that is building will be short or long.

I’m hoping Bob Tisdale will comment on whether his research supports the notion that the most recent phase shift of the PDO statistically favours La Nina conditions.

Thanks for your comments. Sorry I lack the time to RTF archives on this one today…

I’m still confused.

So ENSO causes the PDO to shift?

But isn’t the PDO, a decadal shift and ENSO a shorter term cycle. So ENSO doesn’t flip the PDO every time or we could drop the decadal part. And the depending of the phase the PDO is in, we can predict the frequency of El Nino events?

Maybe, we should just go with correlation of patterns without assigning causation.

I’m thinking it might mean that the PDO cycle correlates with the frequency of ENSO oscillation. But since the PDO is a decadal cycle it might be useful to predict the ENSO tendencies years in advance, even if as you say the ENSO causes the PDO shift, not the other way around.

I’m looking for a forecasting tool rather than trying to assign causation.

The average combined global land and ocean surface temperature for September 2012 tied with 2005 as the warmest September on record, at 0.67°C (1.21°F) above the 20th century average of 15.0°C (59.0°F). Records began in 1880.

I wonder what temps would have been like WITH an El Nino? We’ll just have to wait until it cycles around once more.

March 2012:
Australia experienced wetter-than-average conditions during March 2012, resulting in the fourth wettest March in the nations 113-year record.

April 2012:
Australia experienced drier-than-average conditions, with 41% below average precipitation.
April was the 34th driest April in the 113-year record.
Western Australia had its driest April since 2001.

Didn’t say they did. But before you can talk about causation, you have to have correlation. 0.96 beats 0.4/44 Temp/CO2 hands down.

Then you have the problem of finding DLR trends corresponding to CO2 concentration. About a quarter of measured DLR over the last 18 years or so has negative trend – how do you explain that in a CO2-centric way? Worse, DLR is all over the shop and doesn’t conform to Mauna Loa rise nor does the magnitude support CO2 forcing being dominant. See Wild et al 2012:-

Again, see Wild et al. Observed solar change 1993-2010 (18 years) +2.7 Wm-2/decade (4.9 W/m2 over 18 years). Even if solar varies down over the last 40 years it is still at a higher level than 150 years ago say. As Alec Rawls points out to a dozen solar/climate scientists, it’s like boiling a pot of water by turning the element to high and leaving it there. Thermal lag in the ocean explains subsequent OHC.

>”Nor does your solar output relate to the recent warming”

See above re solar/OHC. The heat transfer is ocean => atmosphere and the SST oscillation is controlled by solar activity:-

My reason for linking those few months was to emphasise that the Australian drought is over, but NOAA, for reasons known only to itself, does not include this vital, and welcome climate information in it’s notable climate anomalies & events map, from your link.

Ask yourself, “Why is that, James?”

In a world of runaway, ‘it’s worse than what we thought’ global warming, this would rate as a ‘tipping point’ if it was anything else.

Now, you can further link, as you have with your cherry picked starting date, a graph that shows no warming outside natural variation.
Good for you.

See Jonova’s previous post for a good year to start your graph/link, if we can cherry pick.

But you have no evidence that carbon dioxide is the cause. Here is your problem.

So there is a cold ocean in the Coral Sea that is being countered by a hot ocean in the Timor Sea & Indian Ocean. Result 15% lower rainfall in NW Victoria and SW NSW in the next twelve months. This not a drought. The monsoon has not failed. Next year will have lower than average rainfall. The year after average rainfall. No-one can predict out farther than that. The idea that the BoM can predict 50-100 years out is crazy. No doubt their climate forecasting is influenced by money. Its the dollar feedback that more important than climatic drivers. If you pay for climate change they will predict climate change. They have no moral fibre in their spines not supported by a Federal Government budget.

As the government has run out of money we can now expect a proper forecast. It will not last long. When the printer starts running we can expect a resumption of hocus pocus. Yet more conferences to enjoy, yet more money spent with zero return on investment, yet more shams by people who have nothing useful to do other than write reports that interfere with the real economy. Ticket clipping is the government game.

The dry conditions in NW vic and central Aus were caused by this years positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) Basically Cool waters of NW aus/Java mean no moisture through the Centre of the county. the Eastern and southern coast get their rain from other moisture sources so Have not been affected (as much)

There has just been a weak kelvin wave generate which will cause some renewed warming, however there is not enough heat left in the warm pool to generate a large el nino.
I like to look at the lag between the change is SST and the change in satellite measured temps. Once temps go up in the lower trop it means the ocean has started dumping heat and cooling has commenced. In 98 their was a 6 month lag, this year there was only a 2 month lag so energy loss kicked in much sooner.

Rob JM: Thanks for the reminder. I hadn’t checked today. You’re right. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of meat behind the recent downwelling Kelvin wave. It’ll be interesting to see how it interacts with the upwelling that’s been going on in the eastern equatorial Pacific.

Regarding your interest in Lower Troposphere Temperature anomalies, the KNMI Climate Explorer is a great tool. It has UAH and RSS TLT data and you can download data based on the coordinates you select. Here’s a link to the Climate Explorer:http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere

The BoM was predicting the likelyhood of more neutral conditions as far back as Sept 11

Tropical Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures remain at values close to El Niño thresholds. Other ENSO indicators such as the trade winds and tropical cloud patterns show patterns more typical of neutral conditions. The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) is also presently within neutral values.

Given the rate of ocean cooling, and the continued neutral conditions in the atmosphere, the chance of an El Niño developing in 2012 has reduced further over the past fortnight. However, some risk still remains while the trade winds in the western Pacific continue to be weaker than normal. Climate models surveyed by the Bureau of Meteorology have increased their chances of sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean remaining at neutral levels

Just between you and me, if I do any more traveling in that direction Australia is a lot higher on the list than Vietnam.

I understand that a more enlightened government regarding economic realities has resulted in some measure of increased individual prosperity. But I don’t know how much. I expect there’s also the usual corruption that goes along with authoritarian rule. But then you and I have our share of that at home too, no?

Last I was there was nearly 2 years back and Saigon is worth visiting but you need to have a reason to go out of town.

Sitting on the roof top restaurant with a coffee looking out over the city is an experience and at Christmas time the place is a mass of lights decorations and literally a million people on motor bikes going round and round the main central city blocks.

New buildings everywhere, tourist safety is strongly pushed by the Government but as with everywhere

there is corruption but only at business level not so much with tourists now; they found it was not

good for tourism.

There is an American living in Phanthiet, Adam, who has a web site and he constantly seems to stir the government: http://www.muinebeach.net/

I live in Newcastle and the alcohol situation has been so bad over the last twenty years that nobody goes out at night; except the drinkers who beat each other up. Saigon is much safer.

I’m glad to hear that things are better in Vietnam. When I was there I always thought Saigon could have been a beautiful city— and parts of it were — but it was full of refugees crowded into settlements that put any slum I’ve ever seen to shame for squalor. Then there were the American style bars catering to the worst instincts of young soldiers…

If I was downtown on a hot day there was a good French style bar where you could get a cold beer without the women crawling all over you. It was open front and exposed to the street and we were warned to not let ourselves stay exposed like that – we always had to wear civies off base too. But the plain truth is that anyone capable of breathing could tell an American service man a mile away just by the haircut. If you wanted to do mayhem, tossing a bomb through the door of one of the American bars would have done more harm than going after me sitting there among a handful of Vietnamese.

I’m a railroad fanatic and while there I made it a point to explore the rail yard. The whole operation was antiquated and being held together with chewing gum and bailing wire.

The same could be said for a lot of the city…just plain down and out. But if you went a block or two off Tu Do Street there were some shops with real bargains — and I mean quality stuff for dirt cheap prices. I got handmade shoes, measured to fit, that you couldn’t tell from Army issue stuff for less than the PX price (a lot less). And the desperation in one of those shopkeeper’s eyes haunted me for a long time. War does not bring good times.

I’ll go over Adam’s site when I have a chance.

And money, that’s the problem, isn’t it? There are so many places so much closer to home that I haven’t seen yet. So I probably won’t ever get to Australia.

Yes, life goes on. I won’t get into my personal feelings and the politics of the war. But there’s a whole lot of pain over it still for a lot of vets.

I’ve met quite a few refugees over my career — top notch people to the last. And most of them risked everything to get out during those dark years. They lost everything but what they could carry out with them. I’m glad those days are over.

Roy

PS: If you were there in ’74 there really was a danger, even to any foreigner, not necessarily just an American because the hatred was running pretty high among Communists and sympathizers. Glad you were unscathed!

When I was a kid we lived near the railroad tracks. I used to watch those big steam locomotives go by or stand next to them when they were stopped and I wanted to sit up there in the cab, blow that whistle and make that train go more than anything in the world.

By the time I could have gone to work for the railroad they were all gone. But I’ve never forgotten them. Here’s some history on my favorite. I watched many of these go by. This one is famous among rail fans and a Google search on 4449 will get you a long list of hits.

So after claiming the previous decade of drought as the new climate norm for the Murray-Darling Basin, we now have a fourth consecutive wet year that the south australian dominated MDBA is only willing to incorporate into the official data on a century average. This is the kind of venal policy process we must endure.

If it is bad, or understates the volume of natural flow, or overstates the proportion of irrigation extraction, then it will be considered on a decadal basis. But if it is positive, increases the average volume of natural flow, or reduces the proportion of irrigation extraction, it will only be considered on a century average, or longer.

It is fraudulent misconduct of the very worst kind by people who haven’t the faintest grasp of conflict of interest.

Wot do yers expect? All them bloody foreign names; not natural innit. Now when I has me barf the hot water goes in near me feet and I has to move it around wif me duck or sumfin to be cumfortable. Gore blimey this bleedin CO2 stuff must be awful powerful cos point sweet fanny nothing percent of it is stronger than the ol sun, makes hurricanes spin faster than a canberrra newsman and shoves them currents around sumfin awful. Bloody big duck that. Anyways even though the cost of me electric has gone from 19 cents per sumfin or other to 30 cents Mum and me isn’t worried cos this seems to have made fatty and the ginger bird happy. Pas back on the dole as his works had to close down cos the stuff he makes has gone to China or was it India. Must go as the queues at centerlink getting longer. Bloody disgrace that considerin all them extra staff there needin these days.

Auditors threaten to stop CDM work on proposed U.N. law
LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Auditors have threatened to stop verifying emissions cuts made at CDM projects unless the U.N. revises proposals to hold them liable for major flaws in auditing work, a move that could tighten supply in a market drowning in carbon credits…http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2033602

Green group urges EU to change free CO2 permit rules
Environmental pressure group Greenpeace has called on the EU to broaden its review of Europe’s carbon market and revise its current policy of handing out most carbon permits for free to big emitting installations in its Emissions Trading Scheme.http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2033172?&ref=searchlist

Czech police accuse two of $20-mln CO2 tax fraud
LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Czech authorities have accused two men of a 378-million crown ($19.6 million) tax fraud related to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, the country’s police said on Tuesday.http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2033450?&ref=searchlist

24 Oct: Reference Frame: Lubos Motl: Czech police uncovers a $20 million carbon credit fraud
A day later, it also foils a $100 million solar fraud
Anti-corruption police accused 9 people, foiled a $100 million solar fraud (Czech radio, automatic translation)
Among the 9 accused people, three are pretty interesting because they’re employees of the National Energy Market Regulation Office which supervises the photovoltaic industry in my country.
In 2010, the fraudsters managed to get stamps on all the paperwork proving that two solar power plants in Northern Bohemia began operation. The advantage was that this achievement guaranteed subsidies – well, guaranteed much-higher-than-market price for the produced electricity to be purchased by the state – for the next 20 years…
There was only one problem with these two solar power plants in 2010: they didn’t exist in the reality yet. You may agree that it’s irresistible to acquire all the paperwork that is needed to get insanely high subsidies for nothing. If you could build 100 solar power plants (on the paper or, perhaps in the future when you’re rich, in the reality as well) with a guaranteed profit for 20 years, you would want to do it.
The profit of the “group of nine little Czech Al Gores” (stolen subsidies that shouldn’t have been paid) was quantified as $100 million (two billion Czech crowns) – comparable to one American Al Gore’s net worth. The police has ordered the court to arrest the three bureaucrats. In America, Al Gore remains at large…http://motls.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/czech-police-uncovers-20-million-carbon.html

25 Oct: Sky News: Australia a major greenhouse player- UN
Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention
on Climate Change, said there was a misconception among many Australians
that their nation was acting alone in combating the problem.
‘Nothing could be further from reality,’ she said in a speech at the Lowy
Institute for International Policy in Sydney on Wednesday.
‘Every one of Australia’s top trading partners has something already in
place.’…
***She said nations wanted to be competitive in ‘the low-carbon economy
that’s coming down the pipe’…
Ms Figueres said if climate change was allowed to go on unchecked it could
wipe out all the development that had taken place over the past 25 years.
‘There’s no plan B because we don’t have a planet B,’ she said.http://www.skynews.com.au/eco/article.aspx?id=809301

24Oct: Daily Mail: Get ready for an Arctic blast! Cold winds to blow snow
showers in from the north as temperatures dive by more than 10C
By Martin Robinson and Simon Tomlinson
Gritters are being readied to cope with a widespread cold-snap, with most of
the UK expected to have frosts and Scotland and northern England told to
prepare for snow.
But over the coming days forecasters predict daytime highs of just 4C in the
north and 8C in the south, falling to -2C in places at night.
‘For most of us, it will be the end of the week before the sunshine returns
and when it does the weather will be far from warm,’ a spokesman for the Met
Office said..http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2222392/UK-weather-Cold-winds-blow-snow-showers-north-temperatures-dive-10C.html

2 Oct: UK Financial Times: Pilita Clark: UN-led carbon market ‘close to collapse’
Additional reporting Javier Blas
But seven years after the first credit was issued in the world’s only global carbon market – the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism – prices have plunged to record lows and a panel set up by the UN itself to assess the CDM says it has “essentially collapsed”.
“Unfortunately, the UN carbon market has become a complete joke,” says UBS carbon analyst, Per Lekander. “I think the scheme would never have survived until now if it hadn’t been for such a noble cause.”…
(VETERAN?) There are two reasons for this, says veteran London-based carbon analyst Trevor Sikorski of Barclays…
He cannot see prices rising substantially any time soon and thinks there is a real chance the CDM “is just going to wither away”…
(EARLY PIONEER? SWIMMING IN A POLICY PLANET?) “The problem with the CDM is you don’t have a CDM tsar who runs it,” says Assaad Razzouk, chief executive of Sindicatum Sustainable Resources, an early pioneer of CDM projects that has since moved into other forms of clean energy investments. “The executive board is swimming in a policy planet where markets don’t seem to feature.”
(EXPERT?) In response to such criticism, the UN last year set up an expert panel to assess the CDM’s future. In a bluntly worded report last month, it concluded the market was “imperilled” and called for measures to save it…http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ee81799c-0c84-11e2-a776-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2AHsPaeTK

Yesterday, I found what I believe to be the root of the IPCC’s fake science. It’s in this 1981 paper by GISS: Hansen et. al. Science 28 August 1981, Volume 213, Number 4511. Yo can get it by Googling ’1981_Hansen_etal.pdf’.

They claim 33 K lapse rate warming, 6 km x 5.5 K/km, is down the GHGs. In reality, lapse rate ~ Cp/g, is independent of GHGs except for the precipitation of water.

The 6 km is about 1.5 km too high and they give no reference to justify their statement. So, not only is the science diametrically wrong but they have apparently falsified the key boundary condition. When this was not picked up they had carte blanche to deceive the World.

Take it from me, in my view the ‘consensus’ can have no credibility. It was never a mistake, but a bare-faced lie.

The dry lapse rate is of course 9.8K/km.
Once water is involved, this value can halve (even less), not only that, but saturated air above air that is not as moist slows down the transfer of energy, so the dry lapse rate can actually be changed as well (think of a slow car in the fast lane)
Latent heat is also involved., both at ground level and at cloud level. If it get cold enough in the clouds, the water/ice phase change also gets triggered.

H20, with is triple phase, and latent energies is the only controlling/ regulating substance. CO2 is an absolute non-entity, it can change nothing even at many times the concentration that could ever be possible in the atmosphere.

ONLY REPORTED on moneymanagement website,”official publication of the Financial Planning Association (FPA) of Australia” which provides “news and information for financial services and investment management professionals” and seems to get almost nil feedback. would have thought this info would be very useful to the general public:

26 Sept: MoneyManagement: ATO flags carbon emissions tax fraud scheme
The ATO issued a taxpayer alert under the belief the arrangements were not legitimate. It warned participants they could face a large tax debt, significant penalties, or even prosecution for their involvement.
Tax commissioner Michael D’Ascenzo said the offshore entities selling the ‘emission units’ may operate in tax havens…
D’Ascenzo said they had seen examples where, for an initial deposit of $21,000, taxpayers had claimed $140,000 in deductions.
“The combination of offshore ‘emission units’ which may not exist, transactions with entities located in tax havens and large tax deductions generated from small upfront payments with little financial risk are all indicators common to tax avoidance,” he said.
The ATO will contact and invite participants to volunteer disclosure of their involvement in the arrangements to reduce the penalty they may face.
(CONSIDERING CONTACTING, REMINDING?)It is also considering contacting the promoters of the schemes to remind them of the promoter penalty laws.http://www.moneymanagement.com.au/news/taxation/2012/ato-flags-carbon-emissions-tax-fraud-scheme

compare the ATO’s softly softly approach & MSM’s total lack of interest,to the Govt/MSM furore and heavy hand of the ACCC in the Brumbys franchisee case (which can fine businesses up to $1.1m for what ACCC decides are “misleading” claims about the impact of the CO2 tax).

the Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury publicly shamed the franchisee, calling his behaviour “reprehensible”, and reportedly threatened:

two days later SMH & all the MSM unsympathetically reported that Brumbys franchisee, Deane Priest, australia’s first CO2 tax martyr, had resigned, the parent company had been “forced into an embarrassing apology to shareholders”, had written to their other franchisees stating they ‘would work to “win back the hearts and trust” of Brumby’s customers’ (HUH???), and would be running ‘full-page newspaper advertisements over the weekend and has engaged a “social media expert” to limit the damage on Twitter and Facebook’ (NICE FOR THE MSM TO EARN ADVERTISING BUCKS OVER THIS, IF THE ADS RAN)

the original ATO Alert, meant to warn “people”, but the MSM weren’t interested:

25 Sept: ATO warns on offshore emission unit schemes
The ATO is warning people to be cautious about arrangements promoting the generation of deductions from the purchase of offshore “emission units” that do not exist at the time of the arrangement…http://www.ato.gov.au/content/00333247.htm

They don’t understand what the climate/weather has been doing since the recordes started.

If only they listened to their GAIA a bit more. The Jacarandas are monsoon climatic trees and this year as in the last three have flowered early to take advantage of the coming wet, (earlier) and also the flowering of the mangoes in SE QLD also confirm this. They normally flower late October through to November if dry is ahead. When the Poincianas flower (should be from November to December) but if they are late the rains will be heavy in early new year. The Poincianas have also just started to get new growth – so late flowering is on the cards – about Xmas – and then the heavy rains.

What if… A Chief Climate Forecaster gets paid the same no matter how bad their predictions are, but a Jacaranda’s life depends on making good predictions. There is no evolutionary selection pressure on Chief Climate Forecasters to be good at forecasting temperature, but the Jacarandas have had 100,000 years of training.

What if… WHAT IF… there is some special DNA in Jacarandas that can be triggered by two particularly hot growing seasons that resets an internal cyclic DNA calendar of target growth rates… so that most Jacaranda trees, regardless of when they sprout or die, are following an accurate solar cycle calendar that lets them predict wet years… a phase-locked loop in DNA…
…now that would be spooky.

Probably biologically impossible too, but still a fun idea.

Okay wait, WHAT IF… Jacarandas… are sensitive to cosmic rays… ;D

Because if their rain predictive ability is real then the plant senses and computes using some biochemical mechanism, so what could it be?

I suspect that chief forecasters and all public servants lack DNA altogether; their very existence is a mystery. Fear not though they are directing funds to Universities across the nation in an effort to discover themselves.

Genes and climate have some very complicated interactions. I’d say that no, the plant will not have foreknowledge of a climate event but it could be true that its response to climate prior to the event might be optimised through evolution to position itself well for such an event. My problem with the Jacaranda example is that so many factors in Australian tropics/ sub-tropics are completely different from where they evolved.

.
Gee Aye,
Jacandras originated in South America and have been in other Southern Hemisphere countries since early 1800′s. They seem to have adapted better in South Africa and Australia than their country of origin. The species seem to be able to flower (regardless of wet or dry winter) time wise in regard to upcoming rainfall events. I agree they don’t have “fore knowledge” yet many other factors may influence this behaviour of flowering between October and December – correlating with the wet season conditions.

Have you got access to any papers regarding the study of flowering (not crop plants) trees in relation to El Nino cycles etc. May be atmospheric pressure on cell development even as simple as an insect attack prior to flowering? Could even be elevated levels of CO2 promoted growth may override normal flowering where humidity or rainfall cycles dominate.

It’s either unprecedented (never happened before) or it’s precedented (happened before).
It has either exceeded previous records or it hasn’t and if it hasn’t, then why exaggerate by using the word unprecedented?
Or is this another case of a warmist learning the buzz words and applying them as often as possible irrespective of meaning?
I guess in climate alarmist speak precedented means quite unprecedented.

Any time I hear a leftist talking about settled science I ask: ‘Okay, explain to me the mechanism that causes el ninos and la ninas, the two biggest drivers of climate worldwide.’ The response it always, ‘Er, but look, the vast majority of respectable scientists …’

You know how the rest of it goes, I’m sure.

Never attribute to evil what can equally be attributed to stupidity. Leftists: not evil, just stupid.

I live on Borneo and the correlation here between the SOI and the amount of rainfall is superb. About 4 weeks ago it started raining more with more of those heavy humid days cloud building in the afternoon etc. Sure enough La Nina.

OT, I know but can someone provide a reference to the newspaper articles of the time when Royal Navy vessels were traversing the North West passage – 1920′s I think. It may have been either an Admiralty comment of from the FRS.

I commend all weather and climate forecasters to consider the implications of chaos in respect of non linear systems. What chaos says is that when modelling non linear natural systems it may be possible to discern patterns amongst the randomness of natural phenomena, ie El Nino, tropical cyclone ‘seasons’, droughts and flooding rains etc, but it doesn’t mean you will have any chance of predicting when or how or in what order they will occur. This means that any model of weather or climate beyond a very short time frame has absolutely no reliability. Call it the ‘butterfly’ effect if you will, but minor differences can and do result in enormously divergent outcomes. With natural systems there are always minor differences. Long term weather and climate will always display enormously divergent outcomes which can be observed but never modelled based on current approaches. Having said that, we should pay more attention to our major ocean currents (as vehicles for heat energy transfer around the planet)and solar activity (as the power source for all weather/climate). Better observation of these will help us understand the underlying mechanics of our weather and climate and may reduce the non linearity of some of the observed natural systems.